Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Write a Blog.

Main menu

Tag Archives: Radio

There are two things in this world that I can’t stand: arrogance and pretension.

By the way, welcome back to my awesome blog that’s all about me and and is my superb creative outlet for all my important, interesting problems.

I am here today to apologise for my absence. The Day Job demanded that I give it my undivided attention for six weeks or so, and I obeyed. I logged out of my WordPress account because y’all are too interesting, and hence distracting.1

Anyway, I write to you today in humbleness. This is a problem because I’ve actually spent the last six weeks working on something rather special and brilliant and I’d like to tell you all about it.

Now, I’ve done some comparatively awesome things in my short career. Many of them would be unappreciated outside of the industry, a few of them (TV work mainly) are limited to being impressive in this country, but the one so impressive and intense I’ve had to stop blogging for is for the BBC.

Before you get excited, I was doing visual work for the radio arm of the BBC. My next project will be a nationwide ad campaign for chocolate teapots.2

That said, the work (still not finished, by the way) is currently being very well received and one finished component is circulating the Beeb’s social networking outlets. I made the BBC’s Official Youtube Channel. I feel that this is legitimately quite cool.3

This is as much as I can show. This shelved cactus is such a minor feature that it didn’t even get paid an appearance fee for it’s trouble.

***

Now, I can’t abide bragging, but if there was ever a time to get into it, that time is now; however, I can’t really talk about it in any further detail without giving my identity away. My secrecy is something I feel is important to this blog, as I would probably share much less if I thought someone could trace my tender side back to the real me.

What this means instead, is that whilst I want to tell the world that I’ve done something I’m actually proud of, I can’t provide details, and so am limited to saying ‘I am awesome’, which makes my skin crawl. Part of me wants to numb it by instead suggesting that ‘I am quite good at something’, but newcomers to this here blog would still see that as arrogance, as they would not have the benefit of context.

What this work has enabled me to do, aside from enhance my portfolio, pay the bills, and make in-roads towards a career-move to television, is to finally blog about perhaps my biggest overarching anxiety – the fear of being seen as a pompous, self-important prick. It took something awesome for me to be able to say ‘I am awesome, but I only think I’m alright. So don’t hate me.

I find myself going out of my way to appear humble, and to appeal to people’s better nature, perhaps because I have always been a ‘beta male’. I know full well the extent of my talents, and am well aware that I have many faults and failings and have much to learn.4 I can’t look at any of my work without seeing faults, for example. ‘Perfectionism’ is a somewhat dirty word,5 but high standards for oneself are a double-edged sword. I would like to say that I’m my own worst enemy, but I imagine that by saying that I would tempt fate into providing me with a arch-nemesis. Actually, I’d love an arch-nemesis. I’m my own worst enemy.

What I hope you understand, is that I don’t intend to let this success change me. and for all of my achievements I am, in actuality, vehemently uncool. I am but one wisp of a man struggling against the winds of time, and cosmically speaking, I am next to nothing. I am flattered that you all think my thoughts are worth reading, and I that you feedback to me with comments is currently both a cause for delight and burning shame.

***

Fortunately for my schedule/sanity, I never promised a post a week or anything like that, but the thought of not posting once per month is unacceptable to me. I have, however, procrastinated even in this simple act, and am noticeably posting on the last possible day in September, to keep a promise I made as recently as the start of this paragraph. I’m a fool to myself.

I hope to be blogging regularly again by mid-October. I will keep this promise because guilt is my best motivator. There’s a raft of ‘material’ I need to take forward and give structure to, which I’m particularly excited by and hopefully will be lauded to the high heavens as self-indulgence of the highest order‘good’. I believe this is what’s known as a teaser.

My apologies once again for leaving you in this chasmic lurch. I will respond to any and all comments the moment this work is signed off.

My thanks to the few new folks who’ve followed recently, I’m so sorry for being neglectful, especially as many of you are WordPress heavyweights. What on Earth must you think of me?6 I will read up on blogs old and new as soon as possible.

Please bear with me, I’ll see you soon.

1 That’s right, I referred to you all as ‘y’all’. Evidently interacting with the Americas has its side-effects.

2 The first project I did at University that earned me industry attention genuinely involved selling ice to eskimos. One day I hope to design something sensible.

3 In the interest of full disclosure, the video has four dislikes, which means that legitimate coolness is either not for everyone, or that my work is neither legitimate nor cool, which would be a colossal waste of my time. I hate Youtubers.

4 Whilst I’m not petulant/stupid/a fourteen-year-old enough to self-diagnose myself from Wikipedia, there’s a psychological phenomenon I may be somewhat privy to called ‘The Impostor Syndrome’ which feeds self-doubt into the assumption that you’re actually a fraud, and that your inevitable unmasking is only moments away. This is a tortuously unpleasant way to live your life, and yet I appear to have described it in a manner similar to an episode of Scooby-Doo, which if anything just reveals that this writer/humorist schtick is similarly hokum.